NPR

At 98, D-Day Veteran Medic Returns To Normandy To Remember A Generation's Sacrifice

Ray Lambert is part of a dying generation of veterans who survived D-Day. Seventy-five years later, he wants to be remembered as someone who "was willing to die for my family and for my country."
Ray Lambert, 98, stands on Omaha Beach, where 75 years ago, he fought during the D-Day invasion.

For much of his life, Ray Lambert wouldn't talk about World War II. But then the 98-year-old veteran army medic began returning to Normandy, where, on June 6, 1944, he led a unit of medics as a 24-year-old staff sergeant in the allied invasion of western Europe.

"I realized that if I didn't tell these stories about my men, that they couldn't do it," he says. "I felt it my responsibility and obligation to them to talk to people and tell people about the war and what they did."

Lambert's part of a dying generation: veterans who bore witness to the largest amphibious assault duringwere killed, wounded or counted missing that day, including more than 6,600 Americans.

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